Civilizing hexagon
The civilizing hexagon by Dieter Senghaas went from research on developing countries and especially from researching different development paths out of modern European states. It identifies building blocks for a stable, peaceful society based on a basic democratic order. Such peacekeeping is seen as Senghaas' civilization project, which strives for a just order. A peace understood in this way is therefore not a given state of nature, but a process that has to be constantly redesigned, checked and adjusted to the ideal state. The civilizational hexagon is thus an abstract analysis model for peace building, security and consolidation.
The pedagogical development of the civilizing hexagon for school and extracurricular educational work in the national and international context is one of the most urgent tasks of peace education today. The thought model is even placed in a tradition with the ideas of peace of the philosophers Immanuel Kant or Thomas Hobbes .
The six building blocks of the civilizing hexagon
In his monograph Where is the world drifting? - About the future of peaceful coexistence from 1994, Senghaas designed the model of a hexagon, the corner points of which represent the determining elements for a peaceful state. The hexagon consists of six building blocks that can mutually strengthen or weaken each other - so there is an interdependence between the individual elements, all of which must be equally present in order to ensure peace.
Monopoly of force
The monopoly of force , d. H. the development of a legitimate, usually state monopoly of force, to which the individual social groups and individuals are subordinated, is essential for the process of civilization. Violence may therefore - except in cases of self-defense and emergency aid - only be exercised by the competent state authorities. Conversely, there must be a de-privatization of violence and a “ disarmament of the citizens ”. If the monopoly of violence collapses, the rearmament of the citizens can lead to a 'renaissance of civil war situations' .
Rule of law
The institution of the rule of law includes the public democratic control of the monopoly of force, i. H. it guarantees the protection of the citizens from the arbitrary state. This is a prerequisite for ensuring that the public monopoly of force cannot be abused despotically, which in turn would be a hallmark of a dictatorship . The principle of the rule of law gives every citizen the right to use the institutions of the rule of law for the legitimate pursuit of his or her interests and the peaceful resolution of conflicts in an institutionalized framework.
Senghaas: "If [...] the monopoly of force is to be accepted as legitimate, constitutional principles and public democratic control must be institutionalized, on the basis of which conflicts can be resolved fairly in an institutional framework."
Democratic participation
Democratic participation includes the participation of citizens in political decision-making and decision-making processes. In this case, democratic means the equal involvement of all those involved in decision-making processes. This can be done through the use of conventional (written, legally guaranteed and regulated) or unconventional (non-written) forms of political participation, e.g. B. through active and passive participation in elections and votes, party-related activities, legal and civil protests.
In return, this equal right of participation of the people ensures acceptance of the monopoly of force: “As a rule, in advanced socially mobile societies, those affected do not accept subordination based on gender, race, class or other characteristics [...]. In democratized constitutional states with a high potential for politicization, such discrimination undermines political stability. ” The participation of all social groups in the political system is therefore essential for the stability of a state.
Social justice
Social justice includes securing the basic needs of every human being and is closely linked to democratic participation. What is required is an "active policy of equality of opportunity and distribution, ultimately supplemented by measures to meet needs (securing basic needs)". In addition, there is the safeguarding of social human rights . An active policy of equal opportunities and distribution, ultimately supplemented by measures to meet needs (securing basic needs), is essential, according to Senghaas, because only then will the majority of people feel treated fairly in such a political framework.
Constructive conflict culture
A constructive culture of conflict exists when there are fair opportunities for articulating and balancing different interests in a heterogeneous society, i. H. there is a fundamental willingness to deal with the necessary tolerance and mutual appreciation and to resolve conflicts productively and in a compromise-oriented manner. This constructive culture of conflict requires a. mainly social justice and affect control.
Interdependence and affect control
This includes the mutual dependence between the members of a society and self-control in conflict situations. When this is the case, the likelihood of violent forms of conflict decreases. Sustainable peace is only possible through the recognition of differences while avoiding violence. The individual must therefore learn to control his affects and to renounce violence.
Senghaas: “The deprivatisation of violence and the socialization in an abundance of institutionalized conflict regulations imply a control of affects. Such self-control is significantly supported by the development of large-scale entanglements and mutual dependencies ... Affect control is not only the basis of the inhibition of aggression and the renunciation of violence, but also of tolerance and the ability to compromise. "
It can take some time after a violent war to inhibit affects in conflict situations.
Benefits, limits and criticism
The civilizational hexagon was originally developed by Dieter Senghaas as the sum of European historical experiences in order to determine the degree of peacefulness in a country and to define the starting points for peacebuilding. Thus, the focus is on securing peace within a country - on the other hand, the model can only be used to a limited extent for assessing the situation between different countries. For some elements of the hexagon are purely internal aspects that can more or less directly decide whether a country is peaceful inside; however, it is only speculative to assume that a higher degree of peacefulness inside also means a higher degree of peacefulness outwardly. With other aspects of the hexagon, it can be assumed more directly that, for example, a deprivatisation of violence can also be established as an analysis criterion for the degree of peacefulness between states. The importance of the rule of law - in this case more as compliance with international law requirements - is an elementary criterion for assessing the situation between several states.
The interplay of all six different factors is decisive for the hexagon. However, since not all six areas are equally suitable for assessing the degree of peacefulness between states, this criterion can only be regarded as being met to a limited extent.
In the monograph “On Earthly Peace”, Senghaas finally presents a comprehensive peace theory for interstate peacekeeping, based on the civilizational hexagon. According to this, four principles are required to ensure interstate peace:
- Protection of the individual states from violence
- Protection of freedom within the individual states
- Protection against need, poverty and hunger
- Protection from chauvinism and nationalism
The main limitation of the civilizing hexagon, however, is that Senghaas basically assumes a democratic state as the basis of a peaceful state and, conversely, suggests that only democratic states can also be peaceful states. For this reason, the question is repeatedly asked whether this interpretation tool is primarily suitable for European-Western contexts or whether it can also be transferred to other regions of the world.
There is also criticism of the visual implementation of the model: It is often discussed why each of the six elements only has an interdependence with four instead of all five other elements and whether this can be ascribed to a faulty graphical representation. The different distances between the six points, their sequence and neighborhoods also allow further interpretations that Senghaas sometimes did not consider or intended.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dieter Senghaas: Learning from Europe - consideration of development history . Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 1982, ISBN 978-3-518-11134-5 .
- ↑ Uli Jäger: Dossier Political Education: Peace. In: bpb - Federal Agency for Political Education. bpb - Federal Agency for Civic Education, March 19, 2015, accessed on July 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Dieter Senghaas: Where is the world drifting ?: About the future of peaceful coexistence . Ed .: Dieter Senghaas. Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-11916-8 .
- ↑ a b Buchner's compendium on politics . CC Buchner, Bamberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-661-72002-9 , p. 466 ff .
- ↑ Michael Zürn: Learning from the nation state, The civilizing hexagon in world domestic politics . In: Ulrich Metzel (Ed.): Of Eternal Peace and Prosperity of Nations . Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-12173-1 , pp. 21-25 .
- ↑ Dieter Senghaas: Peace as a civilization process . In: Dieter Senghaas (Ed.): Thinking about peace - Si vis pacem, para pacem . Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-11952-4 , pp. 196-223 .
- ↑ Dieter Senghaas: To earthly peace: Findings and assumptions . Edition Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-12384-X .